


Time Bomb

by Winterstar



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mystery, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, questionable science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-03-15 20:43:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3461345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterstar/pseuds/Winterstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soulmates might be the way for the universe to balance itself out, but Steve and Tony aren't sure about the end result.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be one of my celebration prompts-So apparently I am updating this.....

_Author’s note: If you are reading this story and you did not access it through Archive of Our Own, this is a stolen work, posted without the author’s consent. Please go directly to Archive of Our Own and access the author’s page under the author’s pseudonym Winterstar. Thank you._

Lots of people feel sorry for him, for many reasons, but mainly for the small numbers on his wrist. They are tiny and tickle once in a while, but he’s learned to ignore them and especially to cover them up. When he was a child he had great pride in them. No one else had such a large number. He would show it off to the other children at school, until one day the bully Joe Jonston hit him in the head so hard he smacked into the brick of the school building, cracking his head at the hard edge. 

Later after the nurse cleans him up and bandages his head, he learns that the numbers on his wrist are all wrong, are a source of derision. The number is huge, larger than anyone else’s. Most people have numbers in the teens, some even in the single digits. A few have numbers in the twenties. His number is in over eighty. It’s faulty. No one lives into their eighties or nineties, least of all him.

Plus, that would mean he won’t meet his soul mate until he’s 90 plus years old. He stares at the number he had been so proud of once and thinks about how it means yet another thing is wrong with him. He goes to his mother that night and asks her as she pours out their thin soup to eat made from chicken stock and gizzards she picked up at the butcher for a song as she put it.

“Momma?”

“Yes, sweetie,” she says as she tucks into her bowl of soup. 

Steve fiddles with his soup and swings his legs under the table. He’s grateful for his momma, and the food she’s able to put on the table after his Da died. “About my soul number?”

He knows immediately. She looks down at her soup, away from his gaze. He knows they, the bullies and the kids at school are all correct. 

“It’s a bad thing, isn’t it? That it’s so high, that it’s a big number. It’s a bad thing.”

“It just means it will be a while.”

His number is over eighty now. “But it’s bad, the kids at school sad there’s something wrong with it. Having a big number is bad.”

“It means your someone special will take a while to find you, that’s all.”

“Eighty one years,” Steve says and cringes. It means he will never know love while he is young. 

His mother pats his shoulder and smiles. There’s a kindness to her eyes that as a young boy he never understands. How can she see the good when there is some much hardship around her?

He resigns himself to the fact he’ll meet his soul mate and then promptly die. He starts to look at it in a positive light – at least it seems as if the existence of such a large number means that he’ll live a long time even with his ailments. He gives up on the idea of a soul mate and focuses on his studies, his art. And trying not to die from the latest and greatest version of the flu or other malady.

He hides his soul mate numbers most of the time. It’s easier that way and less embarrassing. As he gets older, when people do see his numbers they always stare at him with a kind of pity that he hates. His mother never does but he knows she thinks of it the same way he does. At least it means he’ll live a long life which is a surprise. 

Right before Bucky goes off to war, they discuss Bucky’s numbers. They’re high too. They are both misfits. Bucky just deals with it differently than Steve does. He beats the ever living crap out of anyone who insults him about it and sleeps with as many dames. Bucky tells him it is his way to say ‘fuck off’ to the universal design.

While Steve doesn’t agree with his method of dealing with numbers that mean loneliness, he doesn’t disagree with saying that the universal design can just heave itself into the toilet. 

Things change after Project Rebirth. He still thinks Erskine picked him for several reasons, not least of which is the fact that his numbers mean no one is really waiting to meet him any time soon. So if he dies, he dies. He’s not certain that the whole idea of Project Rebirth is in the universe’s ultimate design. He wonders if he’s skirting the design by agreeing to be part of it. Some scientists think that you can avoid the designs of the universe and the whole soulmate business. There’s even a growing movement to do just that.

For him, it means nothing until he steps out of the pod and wishes to hell and back that his numbers married up with Peggy’s. They don’t, of course. They met weeks ago and her wrist has a few more months to go before she meets her soulmate. She’s powerful in her own skin that she’d be one to ignore it, and he thinks maybe she will.

But then he’s flying a plane into the ocean and wondering if the whole soulmate numbers thing is just a joke. Well, at least he can say he lived his life on his own terms and not dictated by the universal design on his wrist.

After he wakes up and dashes madly through New York City, Nick Fury has him in a medical room at SHIELD trying to explain everything that happened. It’s May 2012, he’s in the future. Steve isn’t really listening, because he’s staring at his wrist and the numbers on it. 

The numbers – the soulmate numbers are written as years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes. They are ever changing, clicking down to your soulmate’s name.

He’s always had a long scrawl over his wrist, arresting and off putting for some to even look at.

He’s not used to looking at the numbers he sees now. Maybe the ice did something to his soulmate numbers. Maybe that’s the problem. He glances up at Fury as he explains the ideas of the future, what SHIELD is planning on doing to acclimate him to the future. He nods, because what else should he do? He can’t go back.

Peering down at the numbers again. He’s watching them.

Tick down.

Minutes.

Less than minutes. 

He has seconds. 38, 37….

“You do understand, Captain?”

“Hmm, yes, yes, sure,” he says and keeps staring at the door. Is his soulmate Nick Fury? That can’t be right, they met a few hours ago in the middle of Time Square.

“We’ll do our best to help you with your education on the future. I have one of my best agents, Phil Coulson on it,” Fury says.

29, 28, 27…..Maybe it is this Phil Coulson person?

Steve wants to get up and pace the small room they have him in Medical. He’s sitting on the bed, the doctors checked him over. He’s perfectly fine. No one said anything about the soulmate numbers ticking down. In fact most people he noticed wear a band over the soulmate numbers, now instead of displaying them proudly.

“Sir?”

“Yes, Captain?”

“The numbers on your wrist-.”

“Oh that crap, no one listens or pays attention to them anymore, Captain. Consider it old fashioned.”

“Old fashioned,” Steve says and watches as his numbers click down.

4, 3, 2….

He looks up at the door, his heart robbing him of breath. The door swings open and a man with brilliant eyes, a tailored beard and mustache and wild dark hair pops into the room.

“They said you found him.”

Steve jumps to his feet. 

The man turns to him, raises an eyebrow and says, “Capsicle.”

Fury rolls his eyes. “Captain Rogers, meet Tony Stark.”

“Mister Stark,” Steve says. He has to be related to Howard, the features, the way he holds his body – all similar. 

Tony claps his hands and grins. “My father would shit a brick.” His wrist, unlike everyone else’s in the future, is bare, showing finally his soulmate’s name. “Hello, Soulmate, it’s about damned time.”

“I think that’s my line.” Steve says and smiles.


	2. Universal Constant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay you have your Tony chapter now.....

His mother would tell him to stop, to not pick at the band over his wrist where the numbers, the numbers ceaselessly counting down existed. He wanted to watch them, he had been fascinated by the clock on his wrist. His father had always grunted his disapproval that Tony found any interest in the little black numbers at all. He would scold Tony and tell him to stop being such a fool. 

Soulmate numbers meant nothing. 

_But in the cold sterile room of the morgue, they mean something more than he ever realized._

Back when he was a child, Tony would peer over at his mother who always wore a beautiful diamond encrusted band over her wrist. He would wonder if her numbers had counted down, ticked off until the name Howard Stark appeared at their first meeting. He never saw her bare wrist, he didn’t know if the name of her intended love would match her husband’s name. Sometimes she would stare at Howard, when she thought Tony was too busy playing with his erector set, there would be a sadness in her eyes.

He knew then that her name or her number didn’t match up. They were the first generation to throw out the concept of soulmate number – a number branded on everyone’s wrist by the universe’s perverse design. In the olden days as his mother would tell him, the number clicked time off, and it would slowly but surely show your destiny, it would time out and disappear only to be replaced by the name of your soulmate. 

“Do you believe in soulmates, Mama?” he asked one day when he was six years old.

She looked up from her meal, served on beautiful plates. Instead of meeting his gaze, she peered at the chair where his father should have been sitting. She only smiled, half in sorrow, and said, “No, we don’t believe in that, little one.”

His heart broke that day, but he accepted it. He allowed them to tape up his arm and he learned to ignore the persistent tickle on the inside of his wrist. He focused on his studies and on building robots. Robots didn’t have soulmates, didn’t need numbers ticking down to a destiny everyone denied.

At the time he wondered if he could deny the Earth was round and suddenly one day it would be flat. It didn’t work and when he brought up the subject to his father, Howard told him to stop being a ridiculous fool and get back to his studies. Slumped shouldered he obeyed.

What was the purpose of the numbers if not to tell you something, to give you hope that there was a design, that there was a balance to your soul? He thought about these things for many nights in his bed. Even as his mother and father refused the concept of soulmates the rest of the world threw it away.

It became old fashioned and repugnant. He went to college early, got several degrees and then along the way his parents died in a car crash. When he went to identify their bodies, he asked the medical examiner to leave him to say goodbye.

And now in the morgue, he thinks of his father telling him soulmates don’t exist, and how that means he’s alone now. Forever.

He cries and tries to hold it back, but it doesn’t work. His family is gone, and he is left alone. He holds onto his mother’s cold hand and crumples at her side. He weeps and lets the loss wash over him. He holds onto her because if he doesn’t she will be lost to him forever and there will be no turning back. Once he leaves the room, the large sterile room of the morgue, he will be an orphan with no family. With no one.

He straightens, and readies himself to say goodbye. He brings her perfect hand, chilled and gray to his lips to kiss and then he sees the diamond band is gone. He turns over her wrist and does not see his father’s name on her arm. Startling, he drops her arm and races over to his father, whose body is more battered and bloodied than his mother’s. He cringes and picks up his father’s arm. The band is still there. He peels it open and the name there is stunning.

It makes so much sense now, why his father didn’t believe. But how could the universe make such a mistake. He stares between the two of them, and feels the crush of their situation on his chest like a weight. 

He leaves and doesn’t look back. He decides right then and there, he’s going to figure this shit out. As a side project to his research at MIT he starts looking into soulmate numbers. Only quacks and academic rejects study soulmates now. He can understand after months of work and only getting as far as some hocus pocus shit. His friend James Rhodes thinks he needs to re-evaluate his life choices. 

Eventually he abandons the work and gets back to what he has to do – and this is to build better and faster weapons. Stane loves his work but also happens to be jealous of everything Tony constructs. When Tony ends up in a cave in Afghanistan, he stares at the numbers on his wrist and frowns. 

“What do you think it means?”

Yinsen only smiles. “It means you will never be alone.”

Tony’s not so sure Yinsen has all his faculties, but he escapes on the man’s sacrifice and will be forever in his debt. 

When he gets back to the States and he celebrates his victory he wants to damn the universe for not giving him Pepper’s name on his wrist. They are good together, but her numbers are still there, he’s spied them once or twice when she’d forgotten her band. And well, his numbers are still there as well.

Once he gets rid of Stane and finally figures out how to save himself from the palladium poisoning, he builds more armor and finds a nice little niche for himself in green energy. Pepper meets an artist and suddenly she’s in love and not wearing her wrist band anymore. It is the artist’s name on her wrist, and Tony is happy for them – he really is.

And it brings him back to the idea of soulmates and how it works. He lies in bed and stares at his slowly ticking numbers. No one listens to them anymore – that’s the general rule – but he wonders how many people actually peek and hope and pray. 

It comes to him then and there what soulmate names and numbers are. It is so fucking stupid and easy, he cannot believe it. He writes out the equations and the paper that night with JARVIS projecting the cascade of numbers over his head. 

Soulmates = universal constant.

If you fuck with the universe, you fuck with the balance. Each and every person is a part of the universe. If you think of the macro world like the micro world then you have to have laws to rule it. Laws have universal constructs called constants to ensure order. Soulmates weave together people into the universal design. 

“We can’t escape it,” Tony mutters as he finishes off his proof. 

He hides the paper and the proof because the world is not ready – not now, maybe not ever. He never wears his wrist band again. It is scandalous and the press goes on and on about how he’s lost his mind. Pepper continues to try and get him to wear it and when he stares at her with a quirked eyebrow, she relents. After all she’s marrying her soulmate.

As the days tick down his anxiety grows. He watches his wrist constantly, waiting. He happens to be at a meeting within an hour of his appointed time when he receives a phone call from Agent at SHIELD. Stepping out of the meeting that he really hadn’t been paying much attention to, he connects and says, “Yeah?”

“Director Fury needs you to come in,” Agent says.

“Tell Director Fury he can kiss my-.”

“We found him.”

Tony is staring at his wrist. For a moment he thinks Agent is talking about his soulmate, but then chides himself and tries to pay attention. It doesn’t work. It says less than an hour now on his wrist. He scans the hallway outside of the board room in SI-New York, maybe it will be one of the scientists, or an administrative assistant. “Hmm?”

“We found him, we found Captain America frozen in the Arctic.”

“Shit, no,” Tony says and his heart drops out. For a second Tony thinks his arc reactor stopped working. 

“And he’s alive.”

“What the fuck,” Tony says and the administrative assistant sitting at the reception area of the boardroom offices looks up at him. He waves her off. “What, alive, alive?”

“Very much so, he made quite a stir running through Time Square a couple of hours ago,” Agent says.

“Okay, hmm, what?”

“Would you please come down to SHIELD?”

“Sure, sure, it will take me about,” Tony says and looks at his wrist. “About thirty minutes.”

“We’ll have someone at the door to escort you,” Agent replies and hangs up. 

He convinces himself that the agent or assistant or analyst or whatever meeting him will be the person on his wrist. But he makes remarkable time, and gets to SHIELD New York in less than thirty minutes since he’s in town. When he arrives there’s an entourage and he has to keep his wrist down and out of sight. It’s only ten minutes until the appointed time. They bring him to an office and Agent is there – he’s beaming like he just met Santa Claus or some shit.

“We’ll bring you to him in a moment, but we want you to be prepared -.”

“I know all about Captain America, my father fucking made him-.”

“He’s a person, not a creation,” Agent says. 

“Well, you’re not wrong,” Tony says, and his wrist is at less than five minutes. “Can we go now?” 

Agent leaves him for a good two minutes and Tony’s wrist is itchy and he needs to get out of this little room with one chair and no window.

Agent returns with a nice looking young woman with blonde hair. It can’t be her, Tony’s wrist is still ticking down. She smiles at him. “We can take you to him now.”

“Great, wonderful.”

“Please don’t startle him, or talk about everything that’s happened in the last seventy years. We’d like to ease him into the information.”

He stares at the woman and then back at Agent. “She’s his psychologist. Doctor Ramsey.”

She looks like she’s twelve. “Okay.” He peers down at his wrist. Less than two minutes. They take the elevator and walk down a long tiled hallway to the medical center of SHIELD New York. 

“Right this way,” Agent says and gestures toward the room.

Tony’s not listening anymore, because his heart exploded along the way and he’s deafened by the blast. He focuses on one thing, the impossibility of it, the incredibility of it. How could it be?

His looks down at his wrist and it is counting down. 12, 11, 10….

“Right here,” Agent says and they turn the corner to a room.

6,5,4….

Tony grasps the doorknob, intakes a breath, holds it, 3,2,1…..he opens the door to see Fury standing next to the bed. Sitting on the bed is a man, a gorgeous man with messed blonde hair, wide and impossibly beautiful shoulders, and a narrow waist.

“They said you found him,” he says to Fury.

Captain America leaps to his feet, his blue eyes sparkling and imploring

Tony turns to him, raises an eyebrow and says, “Capsicle.”

“Captain Rogers, meet Tony Stark.”

“Mister Stark.” His voice sounds so hopeful

Tony claps his hands and grins. “My father would shit a brick.” He looks down at his numbers and they’ve disappeared and the name Steve Rogers is inscribed on his wrist. “Hello, Soulmate, it’s about damned time.”

“I think that’s my line.”

And Tony can only laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed it!


	3. Life and Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, crap, look at that....it seems I am writing more of this....

It’s a long hallway, in an old convent. The dust settles around the carved wood of the door frames, on the baseboards, as if it is a layer of extra protection - aging and covering the world around it. He doesn’t remark about it, or try and think about it. He only walks the long way. He’d climbed the steps from the lower streets to the curved vestibule, up to the second floor of the nunnery, seeking answers no one really had anymore.

Because no one believed in soulmates. 

Except he had once scribbled a proof and wrote a paper showing that the very existence of soulmates revolved around the balance of the universe. Carl Sagan had once said we were formed from star stuff, transformed into consciousness. We, as the stars of the universe come to life, we explored and searched for meaning. 

Once Tony did. He investigated the meaning of soulmates, the numbers and the names. He found that ancient cultures, the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Chinese, the Arabs had based their letters and numbers on the ticking clock on humans’ wrists. In fact, the numeral system had been created from the natural understanding of what existed on the wrists of human beings.

He wondered about the names. How did anyone read the names in Ancient Times? And that had been answered as well, with a little digging and a lot of luck. The names manifested as symbols at one time. Not words at all, but as human evolved language and writing, so did the design on their wrists. It evolved and changed to represent the tongue of the person. He learned these things and marveled at the universal design.

Until he asked why. Why had his mother and father soulmate names not match correctly? What was the purpose of soulmates if it didn’t work correctly.

“Maybe it is just because they are destine to change one another’s lives and has nothing to do at all with love,” the little nun in front of him says as he sits down in the chair next to the grand piano. She is the last person of any respectable knowledge in the continental United States to be found that is a true scholar of soulmates. 

“You don’t believe it is love?”

The little nun, who reminds him of a shriveled apple, with cherry red cheeks and a pinched heart shaped face, smiles. “Who am I to say there is love or not love?”

He notices she doesn’t wear a band, that the name on her wrist is visible. It is not Jesus. Nuns marry Jesus when they take their vows, from his limited understanding of the faith.  
“What about yours?”

“Mine,” she says and lovingly rubs her wrist. “My boy was sweet and kind. But he did not love me.”

“I thought it would be more natural, easier to love your soulmate,” Tony says and he might be confessing a little bit more than he originally intended. “I thought it would be love at first sight.” Maybe it was and that’s the problem.

“My boy loved another boy,” she says. “And then he went off to war and got his dumb ass killed.”

He guffaws at her language. She pats his hand and says he has to have tea now. He doesn’t want tea but he came here for insights and she’s it as far as any educated souls in the universe that might understand.

She toddles over to the little hotplate she has where a kettle steams. Taking down two delicate cups with saucers from the cabinet, she sets a tray for tea and then pours the hot water over the bags. She brings the tray and places it on the table. “Drink, tea is Nature’s way of saying you need a hug, Mister Stark.”

He jolts at that because he’d used a pseudonym. 

She laughs. “I’m old, I’m not stupid.” When she falls back into her chair again, rubbing the arm of it she says, “So have you discovered the one thing that soulmates actually are?”

He doesn’t confess it, but pours cream into his tea under her watchful eye.

“Universal constants,” she says as she learns over with a wicked wink in her eye.

“You figured it out,” Tony says.

“Eons ago,” she says and shrugs. “No one cares now, though. Too much in denial and see what happened? The world’s gone to shit.”

“I didn’t think nuns could swear.”

“I don’t think Jesus really gives a crap,” she replies with a smile. “Tell me Mister Stark why are you here.”

He sighs and puts the untouched tea back on the tray. He digs out the little notebook that had once been his father’s. He’d found it tucked into the trunk under all of the other notes and important artifacts. He found a source of his history. “My father and mother didn’t share soulmate names.”

“When were they married? The 60s or 70s? The time of free love?” she shrugs. 

“Yes, but my-. I -.” He stops and shakes his head. “You said soulmates aren’t always about true love?”

“Soulmates are about the universe keeping itself balanced. Humans romanticized it.” She drops three cubes of sugar in her tea.

“No love involved?”

“Oh that’s not what I said, exactly. There can be love but there doesn’t have to be romantic love. It could be brotherly, or father and son, or friends. It doesn’t have to be about romantic love,” she says and sips her tea. She puts the cup down and throws two more cubes of sugar in the small cup. “I like it sweet.”

“My father had my mother’s name on his wrist,” Tony says and it hurts to say it. 

“That’s sweet.” Her words cut like a knife.

“Yes.”

“I take it your mother didn’t have your father’s name on her wrist.” 

“No,” Tony says and he gulps back his words. 

“And the name on your wrist? Do you love him?”

Tony blinks away the memory of his mother’s cold fingers clutched in his hand. The chill of her hand against his lips as he kissed her goodbye. “I just met him.”

“And?”

“He’s a dick.”

“That’s one way to put it,” she says with a giggle. She leans over and pats his knee. “Maybe you should spit out what you came here for.”

He drops his gaze and says to the tapestry rug on the floor. “He’s a dick, but it was lo-.”

“Love at first sight?” she whispers. “Like all the storybooks.”

“Yes.” He just denied it in his head and now, the words fall out of his mouth like a cascade of ruin.

“Then what’s the problem son?” 

He clutches the book in his hand, the notebook with his father’s notes. His father researched history and investigations into the odd ailment of Premature Soulmate Identification Syndrome. It was a rare phenomenon where children’s clocks prematurely counted down too quickly to an adult’s name who was always far older than they were at the time. Howard had long notes on it, dissertations about it. 

Because his mother had Premature Soulmate Identification Syndrome. It happened when she was just two years old. 

Only two and her soulmate numbers vanished.

To be replaced by a name.

Her mother, his grandmother, had brought little Maria to see a show.

A show about war bonds.

And then she had been one of the babies picked to meet the show’s star, Captain America.

Her soulmate numbers sped up and just like that, disappeared.

To be replaced by the name Steve Rogers.

He stares at the name on his wrist. And remembers his father going out, time and again, searching for a dead man. Howard, with all of his horrible parenting skills, his alcoholic binges, and tendencies to fly into a fury about nothing. He terrified Tony.

And yet, Howard had done the one thing, had tried to do the one thing he could to bring happiness to his mother’s life.

He tried to find Steve Rogers. And failed.

“Can two people have the same name on their wrists?”

“No,” she says and frowns. “Not in the way you mean. They would never both be in a romantic relationship with the named person. It doesn’t work that way. If it did they would cancel one another out and there would be no love.”

“So what does it mean if two people share the same name?”

She lifts a shoulder. “One is life and the other is death.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I can’t answer that, son,” she says. “Now, I must get on with things. Thank you for visiting.”

He leaves and mulls over the words again and again.

If one is death and one is life…..

One is the bringer of life and the other is the bringer of death. How? His mother is already dead? How could she do anything? Steve is alive. Tony is alive.

His mother is dead. Yet, something about her, about her memory, her ghost will haunt them. Howard, Maria, were always destine to sculpt Tony’s life, but they were also destine to change Steve Rogers’ life as well. The key he knows is in the writings, the yellowed pages of a notebook, the one clutched in his hand.

Tony just has to figure out how, and why. Before it’s too late.

He turns over his wrist and looks at the name. One is life, and one is death.


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4  
They keep telling him he's in shock, and that he might have something that's akin to shell shock - they term it PTSD. He didn't catch what that stands for and he's reeling too much to care. They all think he's in a state of anxiety with his constant need to slam punching bags across the gym because of his giant leap through the years by sleeping in the ice. Sure, he can admit that he's affected by it. Losing his whole world means he's lost his identity. He’s been swallowed up by the great maw of the intervening years he missed.

Yet, on his wrist exists the one thing he can hold onto; the only thing that can anchor him to this new world. The name - his soul mate's name. He waited for years for it to count down, and not the slow plodding it did for all the years of his youth. But the quick second by second countdown that had occurred right before he met his soulmate. He still recalls the pain of looking at how long it would take for his soulmate number to countdown, how his wrist would itch and bother him, how everyone looked at him with pity. Still, he hoped and dreamed. Erskine's pod did not cure his soulmate number, nor did going on the road with the USO girls.

One time on the road as the Star Spangled Man with a Plan, he met some of the audience. He remembers holding a little baby girl and thinking how pretty she was but, at the same time, his soul mate timer on his wrist burned. He'd very nearly dropped the baby. He'd handed the girl over to her mother, pulled off his glove, and yanked up his sleeve to see the numbers still counting down, but at the same time it felt heated. In the distance as he met other children and signed autographs he'd heard a wail as if a mother had lost her child. He'd thought nothing of it.

Other than a few incidences along the way, Steve's soulmate number dutifully ticked down until he'd been sitting on a gurney in the middle of SHIELD headquarters in New York City, and Tony Stark burst through the door. His name branded on Steve's wrist forever. And for that moment, as their eyes met, Steve saw the potency of time and space and life. His surroundings disappeared and this one man, this sole inhabitant of the future meant everything to him.

Except Tony Stark is an ace class ass.

The whole incident on the Helicarrier seals the deal. Steve knows he's partially to blame, he's not innocent, but Stark walks around like a peacock with his tail feathers in full display. He even tried to torment poor Banner. Steve isn't at all impressed, how is he supposed to fall in love with someone like that. Natasha had warned him, told him that love and soulmates were for children. He didn't notice the name on her wrist. It was in Russian though, and while he had a fairly good grasp of the language, he still wasn't great with names and places. When they'd talked about it, she only tapped her wrist and said, "Somethings are better left frozen."

He still can't figure it out. So after they finish saving the world from aliens (an army from outer space - he still can't believe it), and then go out for Shawarma, he ends up at his assigned quarters at SHIELD trying to peel off his uniform. The uniform looks like something out of a comic book, but he tries not to think about it, since Coulson seemed so proud of it. 

He respects Coulson's choice, not in the uniform but trying to stop Loki, even if Stark thought it was an idiotic thing to do.

Steve hisses as he pulls back the torn material, the wound is healing - will heal and there will be nothing left to show that he was shot by an alien. He rolls his eyes, maybe he is dead.

"You need help with that?"

Steve jerks to attention to find that Stark stands at the entrance to his bunk, the door only open a sliver. "I didn't hear you knock."

"Well that's good, because I didn't knock," Stark says and invites himself in. The room is small with only a bunk and a table. There’s a small locker by the door. It’s not really a home, just a place to lay his head.

Tony reaches for the fabric that's still stuck in the wound. Steve has a first aid kit sitting on the table next to his bed, and Stark digs out a pair of scissors. "This is nasty. Maybe you’ll turn into one of them, now."

"I doubt that," Steve says dryly, but he has no idea and hopes that Stark is only joking and doing a poor job of it.

"Well, it is pretty disgusting. Damn, your skin’s already healed around it. You should have said something at dinner." Stark doesn't look at him, only focuses on the swath of burnt flesh and material twisted and scorched together. With surprisingly deft but gentle hands, he cuts away at the fabric. "Sorry, this is going to hurt."

Steve only shakes his head, not sure that Stark even sees him before he slices into flesh to release the threads of material that have already healed into the wound. Blood, red and hot bubbles out, and Stark takes some of the gauze and presses it to his side. Steve only grunts as he dabs at the blood.

"I wanted to tell you that, this thing. It can't be."

"What's that?" Steve tries to pretend it isn't anything. Nothing about this is important, right? He only waited his entire life.

"I have a life, you know. I have Pepper, well not really, but I have a company to run, and Iron Man."

"Oh," Steve's not sure how he should respond.

"I know back in your day you thought it was something, that it meant who you would be with, but that's not how it is now." Stark says and fishes out the medical tape. He pulls out a long strip of it and cuts it with his teeth. Steve doesn't say how it is probably not antiseptic, since he doesn’t really have to worry about such things as infection. Stark places a wad of fresh gauze onto the wound and then tapes it up. "It isn't about love, it's just the universe balancing itself out."

"Oh," Steve says. "That's what they say these days, huh?"

"Yeah, that's what they say," Stark says. "So I'm sorry, but we're not meant to be anything but team mates."

Steve doesn't look up, but it isn't because he's afraid to face Stark, it's more because he can hear the roar, the drum of battle in his ears. The blasts and flash of gunfire, the smell of flesh and metal consumes him. The war is all around him, and he thinks this is what they mean by PTSD. He finally forces himself to look at Stark as he moves away toward the door of the little gray prison Steve lives in. Steve tugs down his undershirt. "Thanks, I get it, Stark. Just another thing that's old fashioned."

"Listen, if it means anything, I'm sorry."

"Thanks, I appreciate the help," Steve says and just wants Stark to leave.

Stark lingers for a moment as if he's balancing two different thoughts, two divergent ideas tugging at him. "You know I went to see this nun, she's some kind of expert on the whole soulmate thing."

Steve doesn't respond.

"Anyway, she agreed, it isn't romantic, it doesn't have to be romantic," Stark says and he looks like a drowning man grasping for straws only to realize it won't support his weight. "Anyhow, you get it, right? Right?"

"Yeah, I understand, Stark. We're a team and that's what matters," Steve assures him with a friendly slap to his arm. He tries not to feel the sizzle of heat between them, the startling energy that exists between soulmates that changes everything. "I get it."

"Great, great," Stark says and starts toward the hallway and escape. "See you tomorrow for the farewell to the local gods as we send them back to Asgard?"

Steve nods. "Yep, look forward to it."

Stark departs with only a short parting glance. Steve waves to him and then he's left alone. Later that night, he lies on the bed in a room that's foreign yet familiar in all the wrong ways. His wrist feels hot and bothersome. He doesn't look at the name. What's the use? He's waited all these years for nothing.

He closes his eyes. Dreams are not to be tread upon because they only serve to show him how alone he truly is.


	5. Chapter 5

Trying to ignore the idea of a soul mate is harder than it looks, especially when he watches Steve drive away on his motorcycle (and where did Fury dig that thing up for him). As Steve’s figure recedes into the crowds and far beyond Central Park, Tony feels the ache, an ache in his chest that becomes ever present. He puts it down to believing in fairy tales and silly hopes. He puts it away like one might put away an old favored toy from childhood. It’s time for him to forget about daydreams, regardless of whether or not they have universal consequences. The whole world has – why shouldn’t he?

Bruce stays quiet on their ride back to the Tower. He’s smart like that and Tony likes smart. When they get back to the Tower, it’s a different story. Tony focuses on the main event, the Tower itself and how it needs to be repaired and upgraded. While Bruce follows him around questioning him about the name on his wrist.

“That’s really Captain America on your wrist?”

“Brucey bear if you keep it up I’ll make your floor in the basement below the parking garage,” Tony says and flips through the diagrams he’s working on. His computer’s a little banged up, but it will do along with JARVIS feeding him information. 

“Does he have your name on his wrist?” Bruce says and he knocking a pen along the edge of the computer countertop. It’s irritating as all get out.

“Sure does, why wouldn’t he?” Tony says and taps out his ideas of Avengers common room. 

“Doesn’t always work like that,” Bruce mutters and drops it. 

Tony is both happy and irritated that Bruce doesn’t pursue his conversation, because that means Tony needs to seek him out and ask him more about it. He doesn’t do it right away, but when he wakes up sweaty and trembling with fear that he’s lost something, something vital, he stumbles out of his bed in the Tower at three in the morning, only to find Bruce in his kitchen making tea.

“Want some?” Bruce asks.

“Sure,” Tony answers, even though he is not a tea drinker. He prefers drinks with more kick in them like Bourbon, or Scotch, or hell, even moonshine, rot gut. Bruce sets a mug in front of him and Tony smells the distinct fragrance of cinnamon. “What is this?”

“Just drink it, you’ll feel better.”

“I have my doubts.” Tony says and peers at his wrist. The name is still there like a brilliant comet in the night sky, a beacon.

“Why did you send him away?” Bruce says and takes the stool next to Tony at the island countertop. It’s a massive kitchen with all the best utilities and equipment – though not a lot of it is used. That’s a shame. 

A lot of things in Tony’s life are a shame.

“Because I don’t need him as a soul mate. Have you seen the guy? He’s a grandpa.”

Bruce dunks his teabag a few times before dropping it. “Natasha said you seemed excited, that Fury was there and you were happy to find your soulmate. You’ve been a big advocate of how soul mates are important and we shouldn’t just ignore them.”

Tony rubs at his wrist, but the name is part of his biology now. It’s ridiculous and stupid and he hates the universe. “Yeah, I was.”

“Until you got Steve on your wrist.”

“Did you hear him? See him? He even said we’re all soldiers and how we should expect death and destruction,” Tony says. 

“He didn’t say that,” Bruce says and arches a brow at Tony in doubt. “Please.”

“Okay, okay, so he didn’t say that exactly. But, Bruce, really the universe has this one wrong. Tony Stark does not belong with Steve Rogers aka Captain America. Tony Stark shouldn’t be anywhere near Captain America.” He ruffles a hand through his hair, leaves the cup, and then says, “Thanks, Bruce.”

“If you ever need to talk,” Bruce says and lifts the cup.

“Yeah sure, I’ll come by and we can drink perfume tea together,” Tony says and leaves to crawl back into bed and try and remember why he wanted a soul mate so desperately as a child anyhow. He punches the pillow and attempts to find sleep.

Over the intervening weeks as the repairs on the Tower start in earnest, Tony decides it is time to fly back to Malibu and get his life in order there. He has no idea where Steve is and he thinks that’s just dandy (and where the hell did that word comes from in his vocabulary). He doesn’t mention or even think about the fact he’s building floors for each of the Avengers, and he doesn’t admit that he spends too much time on Steve’s floor, or that Steve’s floor is right below his penthouse level floor.

He flies back to Malibu with the weight of a black hole in space and a black space in his chest consuming him. He dives into work and pretends everything is okay. Pepper knows better, she always knows better. She spots his wrist and asks him about it. That’s when he starts wearing the bracelet like everyone else. It causes quite a stir in the press.

_Tony Stark Denies Soulmates!_

_Is Tony Stark’s Soulmate a Criminal?_

_Why is Tony Stark, Soulmate’s Big Advocate, Hiding the Name on his Wrist?_

He doesn’t respond to the constant badgering. Pepper comes to visit him when he’s in the middle of building his fifteenth suit of armor. He hasn’t sleep in sixty hours and he tastes grease in his mouth and it stings his eyes. When she sees him she jerks in surprise.

“God, Tony, when’s the last time you ate or slept, or even bathed?” She waves a hand in front of her face. 

“Bathing is over rated,” Tony says and pulls the wires out of the torso of the latest model. It has a glitch and he can’t find it in the software, it must be in the hardware.

“Tony, you need to answer some of these questions, the press is going nuts over your bracelet.” Pepper gazes at him with her soft eyes and he thinks, if she hadn’t met her soulmate, they would have made a good couple. Something would have happened between them. He hates the universe. 

“Tell them we have a pact that we are keeping it on the low down,” Tony says as he stretches to reach a coupling in the shoulder joint.

“Low down?” Pepper says and rolls her eyes at him. “Your vernacular is getting weird. Perhaps you might think about taking a break, eating, sleeping, and bathing once in a while.”

It doesn’t help. Twitter goes nuts about his secret soulmate. Everyone is trying to guess who it could be. Anytime Tony is seen out with anyone at all, there are guesses and innuendo. He takes to hiding in his mansion until he can’t hide anymore, until Happy is blown up and his life takes a zigzag turn and the ache that has hounded him for months in his chest becomes the last thing he needs to deal with – his house explodes around him, he wears a poncho from a wooden statue, and he very nearly loses Pepper in the deal.

After, he decides he needs to stop holding onto his old life. That wishing Pepper had been his destiny and knowing that she is not impedes and threatens both of them. He fixes the Extremis in her, actually disables it and dumps it. He fixes his own chest and hopes that once the reactor is gone so will the ache. 

Steve calls him. He ignores the calls, he ignores the texts. He erases them but never reads them.

He feels like half a man when he walks out on the cliff where his life used to reside. He throws the shell of his arc reactor into the water, loads up his retrieved robots, and then makes a vow. 

He’d hidden behind his armor, he’d hidden behind a piece of metal on his wrist. It’s time to tear away at the cocoon and find out if he can fly. He heads back to New York, kissing Pepper on the cheek and wishing her well before he departs. It feels like the right thing to do.

Only when he gets there, he finds out Steve isn’t living at the Tower. In fact the only one of the Avengers at the Tower is Bruce. Thor is off world, Clint is god knows where, Natasha and Steve are gone – swept off the face of the Earth.

“No, he moved,” Bruce says.

“Moved where, he doesn’t know anyone,” Tony says and stares at the craptastic tea Bruce uses to poison him.

“He moved to DC. He has a job with SHIELD,” Bruce says. “He works with Natasha.”

“Oh you’re just a fount of information, aren’t you?” Tony can’t help the snark; why is Steve in DC and working with Natasha. He’s an Avenger; he should be Avenging. “Shouldn’t Captain America be out there avenging? I mean what kind of spy could he be? He’s got a red, white, and blue flag painted on his chest.”

“Last time I saw he had a stealth suit,” Bruce says and raises his eyebrows as he sips his tea. 

What the fuck? “A stealth suit? What does that even mean?”

Bruce taps Tony’s wrist – his bare wrist. “Not wearing your bracelet anymore, why not?”

“I’m in my home, I can walk around naked if I want,” Tony lies. Steve was supposed to be here. Steve was supposed to welcome him back and get this god damned ache out of his chest. “I need to talk to someone.” Tony leaves the kitchen and Bruce’s quizzical look behind. 

It takes a while but he finally hunts down the little old nun. The order she’s with finally allows him to talk with her on the phone. She’s a gabber but he sits patiently and waits until she’s finished to ask. “Why the ache?”

“Ache?” 

He wants to crawl through the phone line and sit in her little room again with the porcelain floral print tea cups, the grand piano in the corner, and the floor to ceiling dark wooden shelves with books upon books loaded on each dusty shelf. Then he remembers what she said about tea – it’s nature’s way of giving a hug. He smiles and thinks of Bruce.

“Mister Stark, what did you want to talk about?”

“The ache in my chest,” Tony says. “Is it normal?”

“Have you gone to the doctor?” the little nun asks and he closes his eyes. He’s been such an idiot. For some reason, he doesn’t want to disappoint her.

“No, yes, I saw a doctor. He doesn’t think it has anything to do with my heart. He says it is something else, something mental or something metaphysical.” Tony hated the idea of being plagued by panic attacks; the thought of something else wrong with his brain twists a barbed knot in his belly. The idea of metaphysical – beyond his understanding takes that barbed knot and screws it deep into his soft tissues until he sickens.

“You know I read twitter, right?” the little old nun who might be as ancient as the world asks.

He coughs and chokes a little. “You read twitter?”

“Yes, what else would an old lady like me do all day? Pray? I prayed for my whole life, if I’m not getting into heaven now, I’m never getting in,” the little nun says. “Go and find your peace, Mister Stark. You know where it abides and you are denying your happiness, why?”

After the phone call, Tony turns in on himself and feels decayed, broken, as if he’s not the soft tissue, but the barbed knot itself. He’s done this to himself; he played a game during the whole Loki fiasco and drove Steve away. He stares at the name on his wrist. He’d wanted it so much, but the question was – what was he looking for – what was he hoping for – who was he hoping for? He made a pop judgement of character during a war time situation. Steve wasn’t exactly wrong when he made the analogy that they were soldiers. In a war against evil, he would be at the forefront. He knows that – he might call himself an Avenger, but in the end he’s part of an army – whether it be called that or not. 

He determines the best thing to do now is to allow himself some space to think things through. He doesn’t realize that every time he steps out of the Tower with a bracelet on that anyone he meets and greets is theorized to be the one, the soulmate. He’d thought after months, the whole affair would settle down. They never come close to guessing, but the hounds from hell cannot be as bad as the paparazzi.

“You have to do something,” Pepper says over the phone. “Please, Tony, the press is going nuts.”

“I would think you’d like the free advertising,” Tony replies and goes through his ideas for a legion of automated armor. He’s spending a good amount of time holed up in his workshop in his refurbished Tower.

“Not all free advertising is good, you know.”

He hates to hear the tone of disappointment in her voice. “I’ll think of something,” Tony says. He hasn’t even been in touch with Steve. He’s ignored the burning in his chest, the ache in his heart, the persistent headache that follows him everywhere.

“Please, at least call him. It might help you,” Pepper says. 

He disconnects and stares at the phone. “Damn.”

When he decides to do something, to call up Steve, he’s halfway through a new armor design and his chest aches so much he tastes bile from the pain induced nausea. It’s when he gets a shocking stab of pain in his leg that he stumbles away from the computer console. It feels like he’s taken a bullet. He searches around, patting his leg and feels nothing. He didn’t hear a gunshot, nothing. A sharp hot dagger to his fingers stuns him and he looks to find nothing wrong. The pain shoots up his arm and down his spine. It raises gooseflesh.

“What the fuck?”

That’s when the pain in his belly blossoms and he staggers to the floor. He rolls over holding his abdomen and groaning. “JARVIS?” he manages to call out.

“Sir, you are distressed. How may I help you?”

“Bio-bio scan, I’m having a stroke or something,” Tony says and moans as the pain spreads. Every part of his body shivers as the ache in his chest is joined by the throbbing agony in his belly. He must have popped an artery or something. “Shit, shit.”

“Sir, nothing is coming up on the bio-scan. You are in good health.”

“God damn it, JARVIS, check again,” Tony says and grabs hold of the lip of the console to haul himself up. He tries to hit the board, but he misses his target – Bruce’s line – entirely. 

“Sir, again, I know you are in distress, but the bio-scans read that you are in perfect health for a man your age.”

Another punch to his gut causes him to collapse back onto the floor of his workshop. He grimaces. “Ma-man my age. Fu-fuck you JARVIS,” Tony mutters. “Get me-.” He screams as his face breaks and fractures. Again and again, the pain resounds in his head. An explosive force blasts his brain matter and his eyes dim and darken with the pain.

“B-bruce, ca-call Bruce.”

He lies on the floor not knowing whether or not to grab his belly or his face. Something is wrong, something is desperately wrong. That’s when he realizes the ache in his chest has dissipated, the ache has slowed to a pulse – a single pulse that only flutters ever more slowly.

“Tony, damn it, what happened?” Bruce kneels next to him and Tony only shakes his head.

“Not me, not me,” Tony says. He feels the cold of water, the sinking, the flood of water rush into his lungs. He swallows down the phantom feelings, cursing once, and says, “Steve, Steve is dying.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to publish. I actually lost the original document and didn't have a copy of this story on my hard drive. Anyhow - one more chapter and we are done!


	6. Chapter 6

Steve begins to think of his life as a series of disconnected events, short stories in a book that has an overarching theme, yet the individual characters in each vignette do not truly weave together to form any kind of literary tapestry. 

He stares at his wrist sometimes with a sick kind of wonder. He’d waited for ages for the large number ticking away on his wrist to reveal a name. When the name appeared his heart soared and maybe, just maybe he wished he heard that music they would play in all of those old fashioned movies where soul mates once separated by distance finally find one another through hardship and miracles. Maybe he’d only just wished it.

But it wasn’t to be and Tony Stark made it fairly clear that he didn’t want Steve Rogers as his soul mate. Soul mates don’t have to be romantic, he’d said. They are team mates, friends in some regard, but not romantic partners. Everything Steve had grown up with steered him to a different conclusion. Who is he to fight against the truth?

He made it this far without a soul mate, he can make do without one. It seems the whole world has dropped the idea of a soul mate and the harmony it brings. Of course, he never really saw the harmony in the world that soul mates offered, but then again, he never truly thought it would matter to him. Instead of letting it weigh him down, Steve vows to change the course of events in that compilation of short stories representing his life. 

The first order of business is to figure out this new world. It doesn’t take as long as anyone thinks it should. Everyone walks around trying to explain things to him like he’s from centuries ago and not a few decades ago when he read science fiction novels that in some cases predicted the technological advances he sees today. There are no flying cars or robots taking care of everything, but there are handheld individual phones with all kinds of functions. While television had been invented in his day; it was a rarity in the home. So the idea of having one in his apartment charms him. 

The fact remains that catching up with everything in the world keeps him busy for the most part. He doesn’t have time to worry about Tony Stark or the words that he’d said. He focuses on his task; he’s army trained after all and finding a new mission to learn and accept the world is his without a doubt.

Within the first month, Natasha takes him out shopping. She helps him with clothes and with different key elements that he’ll need to survive. They go shopping for an apartment in DC. She helps him out and he finds a walk up in a nice part of DC. Natasha doesn’t confess that it’s a historically gay community, but he’s not stupid. She only glances at his wrist and smiles. That’s when he gets the band to put over his wrist and hide Tony’s name.

She asks about it. “What’s with the band?”

“Not sure what you mean,” Steve says. They are in a little Vietnamese café in Foggy Bottom. He’s eating soup and trying to decide whether or not he likes it. 

“You hiding the fact your soul mate is Stark,” Natasha says and points to the red, white, and blue striped band. He knows it’s obvious but he liked the way it looked.

Shrugging, he says, “Stark’s not into soul mates.”

“That’s new,” Natasha says and he sees the tiniest scrawl of a name on Natasha’s wrist.

“What about you?” Since they are going to be honest about things, he might as well dig a little.

“I got this while I was on a mission,” Natasha says. She peels back the cuff of her jacket. It’s in Russian. “Doesn’t make sense, never did.”

“What’s it say?” Steve asks. He knows a little Russian, but he’s rusty, and most of the words he recognizes have to do with weapons and artillery, troop movements.

She laughs. “It’s the universe’s cruel joke,” Natasha says. She has the same soup in front of her and she’s almost finished with it. 

“Oh,” Steve replies because obviously she doesn’t want to share.

She surprises Steve again. She lays her wrist down on the table and points out the design. There’s a name – that’s obvious but there are other little designs around it that make it unique. He wonders if they are tattoos. Some people get their soul mate’s names embellished for enhancement or for concealment. 

“This appeared during a mission, the rest has slowly appeared after-.”

“It changed?”

“Yeah, weird,” Natasha says with a shrug. “Doctors at SHIELD went nuts over it. Kept me coming back and checking it. Fury said that Alexander Pierce himself was interested.”

“Why? Who is it?”

“It’s not really a name,” Natasha says. “It’s a word. I waited all my life and went through so much.” She looks away from him and there’s a crack in her veneer. He thinks he sees the glistening of tears in her eyes before she blinks and clears them. “It’s a word and it’s just says, Asset.”

“Asset?” Steve says and studies at the rest of the markings on her wrist. “They ever figure it out? You were on a mission?”

“Yeah, I was saving a scientist at the time, got shot, and everything. It wasn’t pretty.”

“Is it the scientist?”

“Nope, he died, and when I met him I still had numbers counting down,” Natasha says. “When we got shot that was about when my numbers disappeared and the word happened. Not sure how, or why. I was a little busy at the time.”

“I imagine,” Steve says. “And the rest of it?”

“No idea. I make up stories about it. I have to go in and have the doctors at SHIELD check it out,” Natasha says. “Every couple of weeks, they’re always so nervous about it. I’ve tried to check the databases to see what they’re hiding but it isn’t straightforward.”

“Oh, so you don’t know what the rest-.” Steve points at a few of the stripes next to the word. “Those indicate a Sergeant in the army.”

“And this,” she says and taps on her wrist. “What’s this? Two B’s not in Russian.” 

He sits back in the booth and says, “So what you’re telling me is that the universe can screw up.”

“Sure it can,” Natasha smiles. “Otherwise, I’m supposed to find someone who’s an asset and a sergeant and happens to have the initial BB.”

“Bucky was a sergeant,” Steve says and he doesn’t know why he mentions it. Bucky is dead, long dead along with the rest of his life. Those are stories long read and done, ones he can never revisit. 

She smiles at him. “Hell, it could be. Why not Bruce Banner – but he wasn’t in the army I don’t think.”

He shakes his head. “I’m not going to start showing off my soul mate name that would cause all kind of problems for the team, for everybody.” He leaves out that it would probably anger Tony. It’s not like Steve would back down from a fight with Tony, but at the same time opening up that can of worms again is just not appealing in anyway. 

“Suit yourself, but I’m telling you that Stark was a big defender of the whole soul mate theory,” Natasha says.

“Yeah, before he found out I was his soul mate,” Steve says. “I guess getting someone you obviously dislike makes for changing your mind.”

“That’s a little harsh.”

“I’m not wrong,” Steve says and he knows he’s not. Tony barely speaks to him and it is getting harder and harder to call him a team mate. 

“You like it here in DC?” Natasha asks and then conversation turns. It is comfortable, easy, and for once doesn’t entail going into how Steve feels about his whole damned world falling apart. 

He finds a place at SHIELD and likes everything about it. He still ends up in his apartment alone at night, listening to old phonographs- records- whatever. He doesn’t much watch television unless it is a sporting event. He likes that much of the future. But the part he likes the best is that Fury keeps him busy, always missions, always flying different places. He barely spends any time in his apartment or in DC. 

One weekend when he finds himself at home, Steve decides to do a little digging into the whole soul mate science – if it could even be called that at all. Many refer to it as metaphysical. He reads tons and his wrist itches for some reason. Tearing off the band, he scans through the reams of data on soul mates, the history of how they fell out of favor, and some research. He’s very well acquainted with the internet – it’s been his lifeline in this new world.

Strangely, there’s research by a nun. Published in an obscure archive, Steve nearly misses it. It takes time to hunt down the actual article, but he succeeds. He thinks he remembers Tony talking about nun. He looks up the nun on the internet and happens upon her contact information. Seeing that she is over eighty, he sits down and hand writes a letter.

He’s not sure how to formally address her; he was never very good at this part of writing letters. So he goes with an easy salutation.

 _Dear Sister Mary Carlino_. He thinks this is probably wrong, crumples up the paper, and starts fresh.

 _Dear Sister Mary_. This is wrong, too, so once again it ends up in the trash bin.

His last attempt:

 _Ma’am_  
I would like to inquire about your work in the field of Soul Mate Bonds. I understand it was groundbreaking at the time, but that many of the experts in the field discounted your work. I understand that according to your theory soul mates are universal constants to balance the ‘equation of the universe’ as you put it. You also mentioned in your work that you theorized that some soul mates might be opposites, polar opposites as you put it, like life and death. Does this mean that the soul mates would never be friends, that they are bound by the universe to be enemies?  
I would enjoy discussing your theories and have many more questions.

Yours sincerely,  
Steve G. Rogers

He sends it off in the mail the next day. He’s anxious to get a reply, but he doesn’t right away. He ends up on a mission across the world in a little island nation off of Southeast Asia and, by the time he returns, Tony’s house is in the ocean, the President had been kidnapped and rescued, and the Mandarin is defeated.

As soon as he finds out - while he’s in a Quin Jet flying back to the States - Steve pulls out his phone and calls Tony. There’s no answer, but he doesn’t worry, because the man has to be busy.

“You feel anything?” Natasha says from across the cabin.

“What?” Steve says. He’s still nursing a few broken ribs because his concentration had been shot during the whole op. He still cannot shake the feeling of going under water, even though he was in the middle of a ground battle at the time. 

“Some soul mates can actually feel what’s happening to the other like phantom pain or residual effects.” Natasha smiles. “Sometimes, I feel mine. It’s bizarre and I haven’t told the SHIELD doctors, they might freak out.”

“What do you feel?” Steve says and touches his cheek near his eye where he didn’t get hit, but it hurts like a son of a bitch. 

“I get this stabbing pain in my head, feels like someone’s driving a wedge between my memories and my conscious brain. Always makes me nauseous afterwards,” Natasha says. She’s not looking at him, she’s staring absently at the pilot.

“I don’t know,” Steve says. It never occurred to him that some of the strange feelings he experiences might come from Tony. The sense of drowning during the mission, the smack to the face that never happened. “That can happen?”

“Yeah, to some,” Natasha says. “Is Stark okay?”

She’d heard the news as well, they all did once they had been picked up and gotten back online with the modern world. 

He stares at his blank screen and shrugs. “I suppose. The news says he saved the President and uncovered the plot with the Vice President. So I suppose that’s a yes?”

“You tried to call him, didn’t you?” Natasha asked.

He swallows down the bile, the sour taste of admitting there’s no connection between Tony and him. “Yeah, I did.” He states it in the way that Natasha knows to end the conversation. She does, and Steve sits there in the jet with his aching ribs and face and wonders why the hell Tony hates him so much.

By the time they land, Steve has sent out numerous text messages. None of them are answered. He continues to send messages long after the news quiets down about Iron Man and how he blew up his suits.

“I’m retiring,” Tony says in an interview on CNN with Anderson Cooper. It is days after Steve’s mission and he’s home, sitting in his apartment doing his laundry. The television is on in one of those rare days that Steve wanted to hear something other than the utter silence and the ghosts from a distant past in his head. 

“Retiring? Iron Man or Tony Stark?” Even Anderson Cooper finds it hard to believe that Tony Stark could actually leave the hero business.

“I think that I’ll leave the heroing to the younger generation.”

Steve watches and thinks how good Tony looks, how sharp and happy. 

“Is your soul mate? Does your soul mate want you to retire?” Cooper asks and Steve jerks to attention. 

“This doesn’t have anything to do with soul mates,” Tony says and he shifts in his seat, looks off to the side beyond the camera.

“It obvious you started to wear a band to cover your soul mate clock or do you have a name now? Someone you want to keep secret, someone-.”

“I learned that soul mates are not what I thought, Anderson. As a scientist, I can attest that it’s just a bunch of malarkey.”

“Malarkey?” Anderson frowns and tilts his head. “Can you honestly say that? You’ve been one of the biggest proponents-.”

“It’s an ancient belief that needs to be put to bed like the whole flat Earth question.” Tony waves off Anderson but he’s not paying attention to the new anchor. He’s fiddling with his band.

“This is a major shift, a one hundred and eighty degrees.”

“I thought this was about my retirement,” Tony says and he hops off the stool and taps the glass table between them. “Call me when you’re ready for a real interview and not one about hocus pocus.”

Tony rips off the microphone and throws it on the glass table. There’s a screech and then the show does to commercial. Steve leans over and hits the remote, turning the television off. He sits there with his laundry all around him as he folds it and tries not to feel as if someone dug a spade into his bones and hollowed out his marrow. But he’s cold and thinks about shared life experiences – there are none here. He’s in a short story that doesn’t make any sense with the rest of the collection. He goes to bed and layers on blankets to pretend he doesn’t feel the cold of the ice anymore. 

Eventually he learns to live with the fact that Tony Stark is a bastard and there’s nothing Steve can do to change his mind. He does try a few more text messages and a call now and again, but stops when he gets a letter from a certain nun.

_Dear Mister Rogers,  
It is a joy to read a letter again from a young man such as yourself, but I understand that you may be, in fact, my senior by about a dozen years! What a funny thing fate is, don’t you think?_

_You’ve asked me about my thoughts and my publications on the universal constant of soul mates. I can tell you a bit of what I told your friend, and team mate, Mister Stark. Soul mates balance the universe. It is a human concept that soul mates are destine and love. Remember that humans are part of the grander design of the universe, that we are woven into the universe. You may or may not believe in God, my dear Captain, but the universe demands its due. Love and hate are not part of the design._

_Now, take this how you will. But I can tell you this, Mister Rogers, the universe is not one to take lightly. Life and death, love and hate, war and peace are opposites. But the world is not run on opposites. Death is part of life. Hate helps you understand love. Peace can only be maintained against the threat of war. Soul mate are much the same way._

_Blessings as always._

_Oh, and tell your Mister Stark, that I don’t think you’re a dick at all._

Steve’s not sure if he should be appalled or laugh. He opts to laugh because an old nun somewhere wrote the word dick and sent it in a letter to him. It also tells him a lot about what Tony thinks of him.

“A dick,” Steve mutters and folds the letter away. The next day he goes out jogging and happens to meet a nice guy from the VA. It’s a fun jog but in the end Natasha sends him a text because Fury has another mission. 

He doesn’t much think of love, death, universal constants, or soul mates when he’s confronting Natasha about her mission within a mission, when shots ring out and Fury’s dying in his apartment, when he’s flung off the causeway and through a bus, when he sees Bucky for the first time in ages. He doesn’t much think of anything, even when Natasha, pale and shaken, regards her wrist and mumbles something in Russian. 

When they get ready for their assault on the Triskelion, she smiles at him and shows him her wrist. It’s changed again. Things like that don’t happen. But Natasha smiles at him when she shows him that the BB has changed.

_Bucky Barnes_

“Bring him back,” she whispers before they depart.

He nods and then he fights a war to save the world, to save Tony, to save himself, to save his friend. The short stories in the collection collide into one story that interweaves finally to make sense in some macabre way. When he’s falling from the Helicarrier, he doesn’t think about what he’s lost, but what he’s gained. He doesn’t accept death but he welcomes it. 

If death is what he must do to balance the universe, then so be it….

But he doesn’t die. He wakes up to face what’s left of his life.

Waking up and getting past the first day or so is the most painful. Once the doctors and nurses are convinced he’s not dying but recovering at a remarkable rate, they eventually agree that he can be released even though he’s only a handful of days out from being very nearly dead. 

Natasha delivers clothes for him, tells him to take his time. She squeezes his hand and seems content and quiet. There’s a difference settling over her. He’ll quiz her about it someday, not now, but soon. She’s silently grateful and shows it in her expression before she leaves him. Sam stops by to check on him again as well.

“You can stay with me,” Sam says. He crosses his arms as if he’s in command.

“I have an apartment,” Steve replies.

“You need someone to take care of you for a few days. Let me pretend to do that, okay?” Sam says. As they argue, the hospital room door opens and they both stop. Steve’s not sure who he expects. Maybe Hydra, maybe Bucky, maybe Fury.

He is not expecting Tony. 

“Tony,” Steve says and feels vulnerable and naked, even though he’s dressed. He’s getting ready to be released. He doesn’t have a band on to hide the name on his wrist, though. He wishes now that he’d asked for one. 

Sam considers Steve for a moment and then Tony. He seems like he’s about to leap at Tony, defend Steve, but he remains planted in his spot by the hospital bed, by Steve’s side.

“Sam, can we have a moment?” Steve asks.

“Sure,” Sam says and narrows his eyes at Tony. He walks around Tony never taking his eyes off of him, and then slowly opens the door, pausing before he leaves to say, “Right outside if you need me.”

“Thanks, Sam,” Steve says. He gazes at Tony, doesn’t really spend the time to study him, because what is there to say that hasn’t been said already. 

Tony lifts his shoulders a few times and stuffs his hands in his pockets. He looks good; he’s in designer jeans and a dark blue t-shirt with a suit jacket. Sunglasses peek out of the breast pocket instead of a pocket square. When Steve does falter and assesses him – he realizes that Tony doesn’t look put together but more thrown together – that’s the perfect word for it.

“Should you say something, or do you want me to start?” Steve says and moves from the bed. His steps halt and limp – being shot and beaten will do that to even a super soldier. 

“I didn’t come here for a big romantic type of reunion or anything, if that’s what you think,” Tony says and the defensive tone belies his words.

“If you say so,” Steve says and reaches for his shield. “Not really interested in having a relationship with someone I barely know, anyhow.”

“That’s not exactly true,” Tony says.

“Well, it kind of is,” Steve replies, putting the shield on the bed. “If you’re not here to sweep me off my feet, why are you here?”

“I-.” Tony spins around on his heels and then pivots toward the door. “Maybe I should just leave.”

Before Tony gets to the door, Steve says, “Funny, don’t you think?”

“What?”

“It’s funny, at least in a strange kind of way,” Steve replies.

“What’s funny?” Tony’s walls are solid and marble and Steve’s never going to strike his way through them. Tony’s all fenced off with guard walls higher than Everest. Steve needs to find a doorway, a way through.

“That you felt it all, didn’t you?” Steve asks and then leaves that hanging out there like a carrot bobbing about waiting for Tony to jump at it. 

He does. “Christ, how did you know?”

Steve raises his wrist and there’s Tony’s name – still there, still painful in some ways. “Soul mate, remember?”

“Yeah, but I have never heard of this kind of-.” Tony gestures between them, forgetting the door, forgetting his intention to escape again. “Like physical connection.”

“Well I kind of felt you go under the water when your house almost fell on you,” Steve says. “I was on a mission at the time, very distracting. Ended up with a few broken ribs. Surprised you didn’t feel that.”

Tony scratches at his beard. “Well, I was busy getting drown and all that.”

They stand there, awkward, broken, fragmenting. Steve doesn’t know what he hoped or expected or why Tony even bothered to come at all. “Anyhow, is there anything I can do for you?”

Tony stares at his shoes.

“Can you at least tell me why?”

Raising his eyes, Tony considers him and says, “Why what?”

“Why you won’t have anything to do with me?”

Tony grimaces and then releases a breath he’d been holding. “Listen, I don’t know if you want to really hear this or not.” He chews on his lower lip and shakes his head. “Okay, let’s do this. Right here, right now. You ready for this?”

“Sure, hit me.”

“My mother had your name on her arm,” Tony says and blows out air. “God, I have been holding onto that for fucking ever.” 

“How is that even possible?” Steve asks. He settles on the edge of the bed, because even with the serum, he is still only days away from a traumatic experience. His muscles feel tight, his face aches, and his belly hurts. “Maybe it was another Steve Rogers, I mean these things aren’t exactly precise.” Except for the fact the name appears when you happen to meet that exact person. 

“My mother had something called, Premature Soulmate Identification Syndrome,” Tony says. “She met you when you were on tour apparently; when she was just a baby. Her timer sped up and bam, she had your name on her wrist.”

“But she married your father,” Steve says and that sinking, drowning feeling he had comes over him. He squeezes the bed rail and swallows down the bile. No wonder Tony doesn’t want him.

“They got married during a time they discounted soulmates. It was a thing in the 60s and 70s. My father had her name on his wrist, and because of what happened. I don’t know because they never fucking told me anything, he looked for you. Always.”

The thought hits him and somehow it feels soft and warm. “That’s nice actually, that someone was-.”

“No, no it isn’t nice,” Tony says. He scrubs his hands through his hair, messing it. “Don’t you see? Don’t you get it? My father wanted to make my mother happy, so he did exactly what he thought would make her happy. But he just made everything worse. She couldn’t get over it because he kept going out for you. He never tried to just make her happy. He hated me-.”

“Maybe your mother’s happiness was her own responsibility,” Steve says.

Tony hisses and bites at his lower lip. “You know, sometimes I just want to punch you.” He begins to pace back and forth in the room. It gives Steve a headache and causes a mild nausea to come over him. Is this his feelings or Tony’s?

“Listen, I’ve lived with the fact she didn’t have my Dad’s name on her wrist for years. I didn’t know this when I was growing up, I just thought he hated me for me, or what not. I found out and I researched it. When I realized it was your name, I said fuck it. She might have been happier if – well – if something would have changed,” Tony says. “My dad wanted her happy, and I thought he hated me because of you. It wasn’t that way at all, he wanted her to be happy.”

“I’m not sure what any of this has to do with me and you, Tony.” Steve folds his hands on his lap and waits. Something’s coming – he’s just not sure what. He’s never been the kind of person to be able to read personal relationships all that well at all.

“Remember that nun I told you about?”

“Yeah, I kind of do,” Steve says with a weak smile playing on his lips.

“Well, she said that one was life and one was death. One of us, my mom or me would be life or death. I don’t want to be fucking death for you,” Tony says. 

“I’m not even sure I follow you at all,” Steve says and stands up. “I didn’t even know your mother. I’m sorry about what happened to her, but the fact remains, I didn’t know her. She’s not part of our equation.” He reaches out and catches Tony before he’s able to make another circuit around the room. “Stop. Just, stop.”

Tony halts his path and underneath Steve’s touch, he’s trembling. Steve doesn’t know why he says it but the words perch on his lips like a bird ready to take its first flight. He cannot stop the words. “What are you afraid of? Because it’s fear, isn’t it? What are you afraid of?”

He sees the same terror, the same hesitation in Tony’s eyes that he feels in his own heart. “You, me, life, death. All of this. I guess it was easier when I had this number on my wrist that was counting down. And now it’s here, and it’s you and now it has to work. So, I fucked it up, don’t you see? I fucked it up so that I didn’t have to make it work, so that the universe wouldn’t hang on my every breath. I could have stopped before I stepped into that room where we first met. I knew you were in there, I knew my mother had your name on her wrist. I knew it all. But I still did it. So I needed to step back and get away from you. Because, because.”

“Because why?”

“Because God damn it, if the whole fucking universe needs Tony Stark to do the right thing, then we are fucked.”

“Tony,” Steve says. “I saw you lay down on the wire, I saw you fly into a wormhole with certain death on your back. I cannot believe you wouldn’t do the right thing.”

“That’s the problem, Cap,” Tony says and shadows haunt his eyes. “You don’t know me, you always think that people will do the right thing.”

Steve looks away, thinks of Bucky, and his life of unrelated short stories, and then turns back to Tony. “Maybe, maybe I do. But that’s okay. We balance one another. The universe wanted your mother and father to meet, wanted your father to keep looking for me. It wanted it this way.”

“That’s an awful lot of wants for an universe. You’re talking about destiny and an all powerful being or something. I’m not sure I believe that.”

“Don’t you get it? Because I do, I talked to that little old nun myself. It’s about life and death, love and hate, peace and war. We balance one another, because we’re a constant. It’s supposed to be this way. There isn’t happily ever after, there just _is_.”

“You sound like you’ve been reading too many self help books,” Tony says but there’s not an ounce of spite in his words. 

“Not really,” Steve says. They are still holding onto one another, a tether between them, hands interlocked. “Now, do you mind if I test something out?”

“What’s that?”

“This,” Steve says and leans down. Tony accepts him as Steve leans down, cupping his jaw and then gently presses his mouth to Tony’s slightly parted lips. The kiss seeks but does not disturb, the kiss caresses but does not probe, the kiss invites but does not disrupt. It is Tony who opens to Steve, it is Tony who chances to lick and taste, it is Tony who shakes Steve’s foundation until he’s panting and pulling away, giggling as he does. He had been a small boy with hopes once, a small boy who ended up thrown forward in time, a small boy who never knew the truth of possibilities before this moment.

“Is it,” Steve asks. “Is that all right?”

Tony smiles and the trembling has stopped to be replaced by something wild and free. “Yeah, I think it is. Do you feel that? Can you feel that?”

Steve can. At once it is electrifying and exhilarating while at the same time it is comforting and lovely. It is everything he always dreamed of and wanted in a soul mate.

“Yeah, I think I can,” Steve says but doesn’t let Tony out of his grasp.

“Oh,” Tony says and curls his fingers into Steve’s hand. “You want to go, maybe get something to eat? Maybe do a little bit more of this?”

Steve gazes at their entwined hands and nods. “Yeah, I think I do.” He picks up his shield and they start toward the door. As Tony opens it, Steve says, “I just have one more question.”

“What’s that?” Tony says with a smile.

“Why do you think I’m a dick?”

Tony only smiles, a glinting bit of laughter in his eyes. 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to end it here, because I think there's not much more I could write in this verse. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you!

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [tumblr](http://winterstar95.tumblr.com) if you please~


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